


The Temporal Mechanics of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

by Alixtii



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Canon Related, Essay, Nonfiction, Season/Series 02, Temporal Mechanics, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-03
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:25:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alixtii/pseuds/Alixtii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diagrams and discussion exploring the major time-travel events seen in <i>Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles</i>. Which parts are causality loops, and which change history? Whose future are specific flashbacks/flashforwards supposed to be taking place in? What makes sense--and what doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Movies, Season One, "Complications," and "A Self-Made Man"

I've been watching _The Sarah Connor Chronicles_, of course, and squeeing. I'd probably watch it for Summer alone, but I've been really enjoying some of the places they've been going for season 2. Both "Complications" and "A Self-Made Man" made me stop and think, and I had to sit down and make a chart of most of the significant time-travel we've seen so far.

Causality loops are in purple, history-changing events are in red, and indeterminate events are green. The yellow bar is Judgment Day.

  


> **Timeline A:** Kyle Reese fathers John Connor, who goes on to lead the resistance. It seems likely, but not certain, that John knows what's up when he sends Kyle back.
> 
> 1\. _The Terminator._ A T-101 (Arnold) is sent back to kill Sarah Connor; Kyle Reese is sent back to protect her.(Causality Loop)
> 
> 2\. _Terminator 2: Judgment Day._ A T-1000 (Robert Patrick) is sent back to kill John Connor; a reprogrammed T-101 is sent back to protect him. (History Changer)
> 
> **Elements of Timeline A's future which persist into future timelines:** 1/2 of John Connor's genetic information.
> 
> **Timeline B:** Sarah, John, and the T-101 take down Cyberdyne Systems to ensure SkyNet is never created, but only succeed in postponing Judgment Day. Sarah Connor dies of cancer.
> 
> 3\. _Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines._ A Terminatrix is sent back to kill John Connor; a T-101 is sent to protect him; John is maneuvered by fate into surviving Judgment Day and leading the resistance. (Causality Loop)
> 
> 4\. "Pilot." A T-888 (Cromartie) is sent back to kill John Connor. Cameron is sent back to protect him (so far as we know). Cameron takes John and Sarah several years into the future, tells Sarah that she died of cancer in the future she came from, and generally majorly frells up the timeline. (History Changer)
> 
> **Elements of Timeline B's future which persist into future timelines:** Cameron.
> 
> **Timeline C:** Sarah, John, and Cameron do TV-show things in 2007 California. Derek and Kyle Reese serve under John Connor post-Judgment Day. Note: in this and all subsequent timelines, John Connor knew Cameron as a teenager.
> 
> 5\. Derek Reese is sent back to pre-Judgment Day. Nobody really knows whether this is a causality loop or a history changer, with the possible exception of future!John. It doesn't matter, really, because. . . .
> 
> 6\. A bunch of other stuff happens too, none of it particularly important (and thus not shown on the chart) but the chance that at least one of them is a history-changer approaches unity. Indeed, the chance _is_ 100%, because we know Derek _has_ to come from a different timeline than Jessie and Charlie Fisher.
> 
> **Elements of Timeline C's future which persist into future timelines:** Derek.
> 
> **Timeline D:** Derek is tortured post-Judgment Day.
> 
> 7\. "Complications." Jessie and Charlie Fisher travel back in time. Toby!Charlie sets up Warren!Charlie. (Causality Loop)
> 
> 8\. "Self-Made Man." A T-888, planning to travel to 2010, ends up in 1920 instead, killing someone who was supposed to build the site his mission was to be accomplished in. He goes on to ensure that the site is built after all. (????)

I see a couple ways to interpret #8, which gives us particular difficulty because the moment where history may or may not be changed precedes all of the other places history has been changed, and thus presumably negating them.

One answer is to assume that the T-888 always built the tower, and history hasn't been changed. But the question is this: does this continuity loop exist in all the timelines, or just Timeline D?

One of my assumptions in interpreting the show is that the only piece of narrative continuity which has been retconned into oblivion, alongside the flash-forward sequences (and I have no frelling idea which timeline _they_ are supposed to be taking place in), is T3. Or, to put it another way, what we've been watching from the beginning (again, sans T3) is actually some kind of ultimate timeline, a Timeline Z, even if we haven't yet seen the results of backwards time-travel from Timelines D through Y on that timeline, because they fall in John and Sarah's subjective future.

The reason is simple: if we're supposed to assume that, say, T1 (or worse yet, the Pilot) didn't actually take place because history was changed prior to that, then the strangers we are watching now have no background and there's no reason we should care about them.

Thus, while that teenaged Sarah Connor was waiting tables, was that T-888 slumbering in that wall? From the perspective of Timeline Z, _which is the timeline we've been watching the whole time_ (except in T3), the answer is clearly yes, assuming this continuity won't be reset-buttoned the way T3 was. (Such a move would be cruel trick and would, IMO, constitute jumping the shark.) That doesn't mean we can't postulate a Timeline A where Sarah existed but the T-888 didn't, of course. (Or even a timeline to the left of Timeline A where Sarah never existed at all, but was brought actually into being when Marty McFly changed history. Or something.) Which timeline are we watching when we watch T1? Possibly both; in terms of what we are watching when we see T1, the machine in the wall is pretty much just a Schrodinger's cat.

If we want to assume that the T-888 in the wall _did_ change history, I think we can handle it in a similar way--but the future the T-888 came from would have to, I think, be to the left of Timeline A.

If we postulate a Timeline A where the T-888 is _not_ in the wall, which contains the seeds of its own self-destruction and leads into Timeline B in the ordinary way, and so on until we get to D, what happens if only _then_ Skynet decides to put the pieces in place for the T-888 in the wall?

The effects of Timelines A through C (including John, Cameron, and Derek) would be wiped out, it seems to me. But assuming that the T-888 succeeds in changing history only slightly, the new Timeline E would be more or less identical to Timeline A--in fact, it would _be_ our Timeline A, with the postulated timelines without T-888's in the wall existing to the left of Timeline A on our chart.

My other concern is Jessie's concern that if Cameron gets to know John (in the present), she'll pose an even danger than Cameron did in the future Jessie came from. Of course, this makes no sense: the chart shows that Jessie _has_ to come from a timeline ("D") where John already knew Cameron as a teenager. Of course, Jessie doesn't necessarily need to know that, and her concern still makes sense: maybe in her timeline, John never re-activated Cameron during the second season premiere.


	2. Season 2.5

After "The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter" and "Born to Run," it seemed like it was time to update the diagram. Here is the new and improved (and very spoilery) diagram, with notes. As before, history-changing time travel is represented in red, causality loops in blue, indeterminate events in green, and Judgment Day in yellow. I've also added certain other major events in purple.

**Indeterminate Timeline:** All actions by SkyNet affecting history prior to the conception of John Connor.

0\. "Self-Made Man." A T-888, planning to travel to 2010, ends up in 1920 instead, killing someone who was supposed to build the site his mission was to be accomplished in. He goes on to ensure that the site is built after all. This is the temporal paradox I discuss at length in the previous chapter; my conclusion is that either it's a causality loop native to what in this post is being called Timeline Zeta, or it has to go here.

**Elements of these timelines' futures which persist into subsequent timelines:** The Terminator in the wall. The time machine in the bank. Who knows what else.

 

**Timeline α:** Kyle Reese fathers John Connor, who goes on to lead the resistance. It seems likely, but not certain, that John knows what's up when he sends Kyle back.

1\. _The Terminator_. A T-101 (Arnold) is sent back to kill Sarah Connor; Kyle Reese is sent back to protect her.(Causality Loop)

2\. _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_. A T-1000 (Robert Patrick) is sent back to kill John Connor; a reprogrammed T-101 is sent back to protect him. (History Changer)

**Elements of Timeline α's future which persist into subsequent timelines:** 1/2 of John Connor's genetic information.

 

**Timeline β:** Sarah, John, and the reprogrammed T-101 take down Cyberdyne Systems to ensure SkyNet is never created, but only succeed in postponing Judgment Day. Sarah Connor dies of cancer.

3\. _Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines _and_ Terminator Salvation_. A Terminatrix is sent back to kill John Connor; a T-101 is sent to protect him; John is maneuvered by fate into surviving Judgment Day and leading the resistance. (Causality Loop)

4\. There are minor discrepencies between T3 and the future in Cameron's native timeline, most notably the date of Judgment Day. T4, presumably, exacerbates the divergence. This can easily be assumed by assuming that at least one history-changing temporal move exists between the T3/T4 timeline and Cameron's timeline. (History Changer)

**Element of Timeline β's future which persist into subsequent timelines:** Unknown.

 

**Timeline γ:** Cameron's native timeline, as seen in "Alison from Palmdale." Judgment Day happens, and John leads the resistance. In order to exploit John's relationship (whatever it may be) with Allison Young, SkyNet creates the Cameron series. John reprograms Cameron, who apparently becomes some type of high-ranking lieutenant even though John didn't know Cameron as a teen in this timeline. Jessie and Derek concieve a child, who is miscarried aboard the _Jimmy Carter_. Even though the events we see in "The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter" is presumably the version of events as they existed in Jessie's, not Cameron's, timeline, Cameron's version of the encounter as related to Derek in "To the Lighthouse" is substantially similar--surprisingly so, in fact, considering the amount of divergence which exists between Cameron's and Jessie's timelines (more on this later). If we assume that the T-1001 on the _Jimmy Carter_ was Catherine Weaver, then this is probably the earliest timeline that Catherine could come from.

5\. "Pilot." A T-888 (Cromartie) is sent back to kill John Connor. Cameron is sent back to protect him (so far as we know). Cameron takes John and Sarah several years into the future, tells Sarah that she died of cancer in the future she came from, and generally majorly frells up the timeline. (History Changer)

**Elements of Timeline γ's future which persist into subsequent timelines:** Cameron, Cromartie, and possibly Catherine.

 

**Timeline δ:** Sarah, John, and Cameron do TV-show things in 2007 California. Derek and Kyle Reese serve under John Connor post-Judgment Day. Derek and Jessie meet and have a sexual relationship (and presumably the events that Cameron and Jessie remember from their respective timelines happen here), but Derek is not tortured by Charlie Fischer. Note: in this and all subsequent timelines, John Connor knew Cameron as a teenager.

6\. Derek Reese is sent back to pre-Judgment Day and kills Andy Goode. (History Changer)

**Elements of Timeline δ's future which persist into subsequent timelines:** Derek (and possibly Catherine).

 

**Timeline ε:** Derek is tortured post-Judgment Day. The events on the _Jimmy Carter_ unfold exactly as we see them in Jessie's flashbacks, and to "our" Jessie. The Cameron that Jessie talks to afterwards is either "our" Cameron, who would be experiencing this conversation for the _second_ time (and if so, why didn't she _prevent_ the disaster?) or a version of Cameron native to the timeline (in which case one would wonder why and how this version of Cameron was created, since the explanation from "Alison from Palmdale" wouldn't apply; also, where the hell is "our" Cameron?).

7\. Jessie and Riley travel back to pre-Judgment Day in order to decrease Cameron's influence on John. At one point, Jessie's concern is stated as a counterfactual: that if Cameron gets to know John (in the present), she'll pose an even danger than Cameron did in the future Jessie came from. Of course, this makes no sense: a) Jessie has to come from a timeline ("D") where John already knew Cameron as a teenager. Of course, Jessie doesn't necessarily need to know that, and her concern still makes sense: maybe in her timeline, John never re-activated Cameron during the second season premiere. b) Since Cameron doesn't travel back from Jessie's timeline, there is no real reason for Jessie to think that history might be changed such that Cameron's influence over John would increase. As it stands, I think the best fanwank is that rather than trying to prevent Cameron's influence over John from growing, Jessie is simply trying to diminish the amount of influence Cameron has. (Unknown Effect)

8\. "Complications." Charlie Fisher travel back in time. Toby!Charlie sets up Warren!Charlie. (Causality Loop)

9\. "Born to Run." John and Catherine travel to the post-Judgment Day future, where John is not the leader of resistance due to the fact that he was busy travelling to the future and thus wasn't there. Sarah presumably has died of cancer by this point.

**Elements of Timeline ε's future which persist into subsequent timelines:** Jessie, Riley, and possibly Catherine.

 

**Timeline ζ:** The last scene of "Born to Run."

10\. I've seen speculation that there's a causality loop involved here. If so, it's quite localized--it absolutely can't, for example, involve Derek, because "Complications" rules that out as a possibility; his native timeline simply _cannot_ be the same as the BtR timeline. (I suppose it's possible the event of John jumping forward in time could have happened in both, though, although it clearly doesn't happen in _all_ timelines.) It could potentially involve Jessie, Riley, or Catherine (in which case ε and ζ would collapse into each other), but I find even those extremely unlikely.

The interesting thing about the second half of Season 2, actually, is there seems to be _no_ meaningful causality loops (I'm sure there are minor ones going on in the background). The interesting thing about the Terminator franchise after T2, and especially after T3, is the way that both causality loops and history-changing time travel are both present in abundance; the presence of the one type of paradox doesn't preclude the other. (Nor should it. You can have a coherent temporal mechanics in which history-changing isn't possible, but I can't imagine a temporal mechanics in which causality loops don't represent a possible state of affairs.

I don't quite understand all the fanresponses I've read that seem to assume that show canon can be one big, happy causality loop, and I find that pervasiveness of that perspective frustrating. (Even the Terminator Wiki tries to press everything together into one timeline.) The only way I can imagine that working is if everyone who came from the future--Kyle, the T-101's, Cameron, Derek, Jessie, Catherine--has been lying not only about the date of Judgment Day, but about pretty much everything. Which would be a serious break of contract with the viewer.


	3. Addenda

1\. SCC 1x02 strongly implies that Derek and Cameron come from the same future (the date that Cameron provides for Judgment Day is the combination for the safe). Thus, in the future that Derek comes from, John doesn't skip any years. (Presumably, in the future Jessie comes from, he does.) In short, Timelines B and C are the same.

That would mean any appearance of Cameron in Derek's flashbacks would be an appearance of _our_ Cameron, and the differences between the future of, say, "Dungeons and Dragons" and T3 would be the same as between Cameron's future and T3--the main difference we know of being the date of Judgment Day. (I'm not quite sure I understand the mechanics of T3, though--at first glance it looks like a causality loop, but on further looks it become clear that history is being changed through the deaths of the lieutenants, although I'm not sure what it's being changed _from_\--so it might be better to just ignore it altogether.) Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything problematic about this (other than one would expect his and Jessie's timelines to be more wildly divergent, but we already have weird parallelism existing between timelines: Judgment Day itself, of course, but also the fact that Cameron and Jessie both remember the conversation about Jessie's unborn child despite both coming from different timelines) or any detail to contradict the theory. Can anyone else?

2\. CAMERON: You sent [Derek] back to wait for us. (in "Queen's Gambit")

This reaffirms the notion that Derek and Cameron come from the same timeline. (Or does it?) But _when_ and _why_ did John send Derek back?

If Derek was sent back to 2006+, then he would have been wiped away when Cameron changed history in 1999, and wouldn't appear in the new timeline _The Sarah Connor Chronicles_ takes place in--unless both John's send back Derek: the first so that Cameron can remember it, and the second so that Derek can actually reach the destination. The thing is, they'd have to send John for different reasons: the latter John would send Derek back knowing that Cameron would cause Sarah and John to jump forward in the future, and the former John would send Derek back because--the thing is, I can't figure out a coherent reason why John would send Derek back.

He'd have to have known that Cameron was going to change history, because presumably he wouldn't have remembered meeting Cameron as a teenager. (I toyed with the possibility of ignoring T3 and assuming that John _did_ remember meeting Cameron, and having it all be one big causality loop--but no, Sarah's death by cancer screws up that theory.) So it'd be silly to send Derek back to any point in time after he sent Cameron. So he either didn't think things through--and I'd hate for the fanwank to only work by assuming the characters are stupid--or else he sent back Derek to before 1999. But that doesn't seem to work--surely Jessie would have noticed if he was suddenly a lot older? (We can assume that Derek jumped back and then jumped forward, but now we're getting to truly massive amounts of fanwank.)

Maybe there's some way John could send Derek and Cameron back at the same time (but to different temporal destinations) so that Derek would be protected from the effects of Cameron changing history? Call it the _Stargate: Continuum_ school of time travel theory.

Ruling out that possibility, we're now back to Derek and Cameron being from separate timelines. But why would Cameron claim to know the reason John sent Derek back if they aren't from the same timeline? Assuming that John did, for whatever reason, try to send Derek back in Cameron's timeline, she could have assumed the same logic would carry over. This seems like a big assumption--if Derek's John knew Cameron as a teenager, that John might well reason very differently, but again, for the show to make any sense at all we do need to assume some degree of temporal inertia, that certain patterns (like Cameron's conversation with Jessie) keep happening over and over again in multiple timelines. Cameron would presumably be familiar with this phenomenon. But that explanation still doesn't seem totally sufficient to explain Cameron's utter _certainty_ that Derek's mission was not to kill Andy Goode, but rather to wait for "us." There's no way she could be 100% positive that history didn't change in a salient way, is there?

The simplest explanation might be to simply assume Cameron is lying. But what could her motivation be? (Ooh, there's a fic there somewhere.)


End file.
